07 Mar 2005

Justice Ain’t the Same as Wisdom

The United States Department of Justice announced today that it would
be making a radical purchasing decision: stop dealing with the firm it
considers an illegal monopoly. No more
Microsoft Word at Main Justice. So they will spend $13 million to
acquire Word Perfect licenses from Corel. Did they consider
OpenOffice at $0? Why bother—Let’s just cut Social Security
benefits instead.

16 Feb 2005

Freedom and the Robot Army

The eighteenth-century British North American aristocrats who
created the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights had learned from
the English politicians of the seventeenth century that a professional
army is the surest pillar of despotism. They hoped that, under North
American conditions, reliance on a citizen militia organized by the
States, rather than an Army under the control of the Federal
Government, would be a sufficient protection against tyranny.

The twentieth century showed that the value of a professional army
used against citizens seeking political change was not limited by the
balance of military force: citizens armed, no matter how heavily,
cannot withstand a conflict with a modern military remorselessly
applied. But remorseless application of armies against their own
compatriots became difficult in many parts of the world in the latter
twentieth century, as new means of communication amplified “people
power.” The Chinese Communist Party achieved at Tien An Men what the
Polish, East German, Czechoslovak, Philippine, Georgian, Ukranian and
other regimes could not: even in crumbling dictatorships, the
televised massacre of citizens is more than most armies, however
ruthlessly led, will undertake.

The twenty-first century will be different. The United States will
lead the way. The
Pentagon is investing heavily in the development of robot
infantry. Given the resources it will bring to bear, within two
decades we will see the introduction of machines that remove all sense
of consequences, personal and social, from the business of killing.
Robot infantry may or may not prove valuable battlefield soldiers. In
specialized roles they will probably succeed in being more
cost-effective than human combatants. But at the violent suppression
of political unrest they will be unparalleled. A brigade or two will
be within the budget of every autocrat faced with a green or orange or
red revolution.

We won’t need them to be torturers, however. For that, as we have
learned, human volunteers are always available.